Its amazing to see how this thread has evolved. When I first started it, it was purely from a curiosity stand point. I knew, or should say know nothing about the species. Living down here in NC, we don't get steelhead, at least not that I am aware of. Now reading over all these posts and seeing the pictures, I feel like I will be taking a trip back north under the guise of visiting my in-laws just so I can get some steelhead fishing in.

I'm sure there's nothing like chasing the wild steel hot from the sea in the PNW, but living within a 2 hour drive from one of the Great Lakes has it's perks. For me, much like any other type of fly fishing, it's the challenge of figuring out which fly, where they're laying, and the opportunity to land a 4-6lb (on average) fish. Some days your arm gets tired, other days you take the fly rod for a walk and will do anything to find a willing fish. When you hook into one that decides to take a run you'll know that's what its all about. Nice fish ghocevar! And BTW, that's a beautiful Jeep too.

For what its worth there are "wild" steelhead in the great lakes. The Brule in WI is one of the rivers (only in WI) that has them. Last year was my first year at it. I live 20 minutes from one of the Lake Michigan Tribs. I managed to catch 3 last spring. And about 50 in the Fall. I managed to catch 2 "wild" steelhead in the Brule last fall. We have a bonus of having monster browns (I saw a 34" pulled in last fall) also. I have yet to catch a big brown yet, my biggest was only 26". And we have Kings and Coho's too. But of all of these I love the steelhead best. I don't know why I didn't do this for all the years I lived here.

I actually like the smaller rivers, The brule is maybe 100-200cfm and the one I live close to is about 100-150. I did catch one last spring in a small creek. That was very intense. When fishing the smaller rivers they may not peel off tons of line but they sure do have lots of "junk" to run into that makes it interesting.

In the Great Lakes it seems as there are several ways to catch them, nymphing, eggs under indicators, Swinging flies, stripping streamers. They even catch them thru the ice in the rivers.

Great fish, lost of heart stopping runs, jumps, head shakes and alligator rolls. You never know what they are going to do. The best I can describe it is they are electric when you hook into one, they can just go bonkers. You can tell a brown from a steelhead before even seeing the fish. A brown just does not have the fire in his belly like a Steelhead does.